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It’s been a long work in progress but I finally hit my food budget! If you’ve been following for a while you’ll remember at the end of last year I set out to reduce my food budget to $400/month. Normally I’d spend anywhere from $550-$700/month so it was a big drop in spending.
It took me months of trying and getting kind in close, but never at, or under that $400 mark.
I’m happy to stay that April was a success. Yes yes yes!!!
The total spent in April was $380 and there is just one major contributing factor that helped me get there – Jacob put me on a budget.
Instead of having $400 available at the beginning of the month, I’m only given $100 each Friday. The $100 is cash so I know I only have that much to spend at the grocery store opposed to just swiping my debit card.
Knowing that I only have so much cash in my wallet has actually made me spend less. It’s kind of like a game, how little can I spend? The last thing I want to do is tell the cashier to take items off because it added up to more than I thought. It happened once and it wont happen again.
We were gone for 1 week in April so May could be more of a challenge since we’ll be home the whole month, but I’m so ready for that challenge!
We’ve still been eating tasty, homemade meals. You CAN eat healthy on a budget! My crockpot has been a saver lately, both with chili and these yummy pineapple meatballs I’ll be sharing with you tomorrow!
On a completely different note, if you’re in the mood to read about a healthy habit of mine anyone can do, go check out my guest post over at The Healthy Apron. You’ll see a pretty awesome picture of me too.
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Good job. I need to make a budget–I am so bad with spending on food!
I was too until Jacob put me on a budget. Now it’s like a challenge, so much fun!
Good for you! Again- I think that is just awesome! I’m terrible at food budgeting. Maybe I should make Josh give me a budget too. Hope you’re having a great weekend
Wow…$400 a month…impressive!! I am going to try that cash trick!
It’s the only thing that worked for me!
Yay for hitting your budget! This goes to show that you can do anything if you put your mind and effort into it!
Congrats on keeping on budget!! I think what helps me stay in budget is that I don’t buy meat. If I’m going to have meat, I’ll have it when I go out to dinner.
That would definitely help! Great plan.
I need to put myself on a stricter grocery budget since my student loans gouge me too much every month.
Congrats on meeting your budget goal finally. I am struggeling now with it espciall after coming back from a long vacation. We are low on everything so pray for us 🙂
That would make it a challenge. You’ll get there Faith!